The late, great and insufficiently lamented TV director Alan Clarke had a genius for finding fresh, real young faces. His BBC films of the 1970s and 1980s featured the debuts of dozens of future big names. All the people you think you saw for the first time in Mike Leigh's movies? David Thewlis, Phil Daniels, Lesley Sharpe, Jane Horrocks, Tim Roth? Go back to the Clarke plays and you'll see he used them first. And the king of all his discoveries was Ray.

No one who's seen it ever forgets Scum, and it's Winstone who makes the movie: bruised and beautiful, doughy-soft yet hard as flint, and possessed of the kind of physical grace you'd expect from a boxer. The raw, untutored aggression of his performance is the film's galvanising element. His Carlin is hard and vicious, but the wounded look in Ray's eyes - his secret weapon as an actor - keeps him firmly within the realm of our sympathies, no matter how many faces and bodies he breaks en route to Daddyhood.

What's amazing is how fast he disappeared into a holding pattern of mediocre TV cameos after Scum and smaller roles in Quadrophenia and That Summer. It was always a pleasure to spot him in Minder, and his Will Scarlett should have fragged that pantywaist Jason Connery's Robin Hood, but one always yearned for the undiluted Rayness of Ray.

In the 1990s, we finally got it, and a string of fine performances ensued as more and more directors saw what a resource they'd been missing: Ladybird Ladybird; Nil By Mouth; Face. Ray's brazen masculinity is underpinned by a feminine side, a softness that enriches and complicates his work in Sexy Beast (not for nothing is his character called "Dove" and "Gal") and in Last Orders.

There were altogether too many by-the-numbers villains in his CV, but after Sexy Beast he seems to have become more discriminating, more adventurous and, best of all, more visible, this week cropping up in Minghella's prestige period drama Cold Mountain. Winstone is one of those naturals who come fully equipped with physical confidence and indelible presence before the camera. It's gratifying to know he's now a household name. Time to start building statues or designing new banknotes.

Career high Take your pick: Scum, Face, Sexy Beast, or the recent Ripley's Game.

Career low Well, he did a Bergerac once...

Need to know Turned down a US TV series because he didn't fancy living in Baltimore for seven months of the year. If you've ever been to Baltimore, you'll understand.

The last word Regarding Last Orders: "It was nice to watch myself in a film where I wasn't shooting, stabbing or hitting someone. I do have a little scuffle with David Hemmings' character in one scene, but it's a pathetic, sad little fight really."